2QO WHITE 



disadvantages some convents used to complain, and especially 

 those at Canterbury; but this Priory, from its sequestered 

 situation, could seldom be subject to either of these inconven- 

 iences, and therefore we must attribute its frequent debts 

 and embarrassments, well endowed as it was, to the bad con- 

 duct of its members, and a general inattention to the interests 

 of the institution. 



NOTES 



1 Yet in ten years' time we find, by the " Notabilis Visitatio," that all 

 their relics, plate, vestments, title-deeds, etc., were in pawn. G. W. 



2 Lowth's Life of Wykeham." G. W. 



LETTER XVI 



BEAUFORT was bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 1447 ; 

 and yet, notwithstanding this long episcopate, only torn. i. of 

 Beaufort's " Register " is to be found. This loss is much to 

 be regretted, as it must unavoidably make a gap in the history 

 of Selborne Priory, and perhaps in the list of its priors. 



In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again in 1411. 



In Vol. I., p. 24, of Beaufort's " Register," is the instrument 

 of the election of John Wynchestre to be prior the sub- 

 stance as follows : 



Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop that 

 brother Thomas Weston, the late prior, died October i8th, 

 1410, and was buried November nth. That the bishop's 

 license to elect having been obtained he and the whole con- 

 vent met in the chapter-house, on the same day about the hour 

 of vespers, to consider of the election ; that brother John Wyn- 

 chestre, then sub-prior, with the general consent, appointed 

 the 1 2th November, ad horam ejusdem diei capitular em> for 

 the business ; when they met in the chapter-house, post mis- 

 sam de sancto Spiritu, solemnly celebrated in the church ; 

 to wit, Richard Elstede, Thomas Halyborne, John Lemyng- 

 ton, sacrista ; John Stepe, cantor ; Walter Ff arnham, Richard 

 Putworth, celerarius ; Hugh London, Henry Brampton, alias 

 Brompton ; John Wynchestre, senior, John Wynchestre, jun- 

 ior; then "Proposito primitis verbo Dei," and then hymno 



